6:1 When the ark of the LORD had been in the land1 of the Philistines for seven months,2 6:2 the Philistines called the priests and the necromancers saying, “What should we do with the ark of the LORD? Advise us as to how we should send it back to its place.”
6:3 They replied, “If you are going to send the ark of3 the God of Israel back, don’t send it away empty. Be sure to return it with a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and you will understand why his hand has not been removed from you.” 6:4 They inquired, “What is the guilt offering that we should return to him?”
They replied, “The number of the Philistine leaders is five. So send five golden sores and five golden mice, for it is the same plague that has afflicted both you and your leaders. 6:5 You should make likenesses of the sores and likenesses of your mice that are destroying the land. You should honor the God of Israel. Perhaps he will lighten up his hand from you, from your gods, and from your land. 6:6 Why harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? When he dealt ruthlessly with them, didn’t they send them going on their away? 6:7 So now go and make a new cart. Get two cows that have calves and that have never had a yoke placed on them. Bind the cows to the cart and take their calves from them back to their places. 6:8 Then take the ark of the LORD and place it on the cart, and put in a chest beside it the golden vessels that you are returning to him as a guilt offering. You should then send it on its way. 6:9 But keep an eye on it. If it should go up by the way of its own border to Beth Shemesh, then he has caused this great calamity or us. But if that is not the case, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us; rather, it just happened to come on us.”
6:10 So the men acted accordingly. They took two cows that had calves and bound them to a cart; they removed their calves to their places. 6:11 They put the ark of the LORD on the cart, along with the chest and the golden mice and the likenesses of the sores. 6:12 Then the cows proceeded directly on the road to Beth Shemesh; They went along lowing as they went; they turned neither to the right nor to the left. The leaders of the Philistines were going along behind them all the way to the border of Beth Shemesh.
6:13 Now the residents of Beth Shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley. When they looked up and saw the ark, they were pleased with what they saw. 6:14 The cart was coming to the field of Joshua, who was from Beth Shemesh. It paused there near a big stone. Then they cut up the wood of the cart and they offered the cows as a burnt offering to the LORD. 6:15 The Levites took down the ark of the LORD and the chest that was with it, in which were the golden vessels. They placed them near the big stone. At that time the people of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the LORD. 6:16 The five leaders of the Philistines watched what was happening and then returned to Ekron on the same day.
6:17 These are the golden sores that the Philistines brought as a guilt offering to the LORD—one to each of the following cities: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. 6:18 The golden mice corresponded in number to all the Philistine cities of the five leaders, from the fortified cities to hamlet villages, to greater Abel, where they positioned the ark of the LORD till this very day in the field of Joshua who was from Beth Shemesh.
6:19 But he struck down some of the people of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the LORD; he struck down 50,0704 of the men. The people grieved because the LORD had struck a hard blow on the people. 6:20 The residents of Beth Shemesh asked, “Who is able to stand before this holy LORD God? To whom will it go up after us?”
6:21 So they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath Jearim saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the LORD. Come down here and take it back home with you.”